I don't own Dragonball Z or any of it's characters...but I do own Max, she's mine...

So thanks for reading people, and stay tuned, if people like this and it gets good reviews (hint hint ;) ) then there will hopefully be some Vegeta mclovin later on...but not toooo much later on, I just can't get enough of him hehe. And bear in mind this is my very first fic so if it sucks and blows then please let me know what I can do to change it...don't shoot me, that's never a good thing...

Hope you enjoy :)

You know the feeling that you get when you're trying desperately to remember something, but you just can't? And sometimes, if you think about it long enough, you'll get flashes of what it is you're supposed to be remembering, but as soon as they're gone, you have no idea what you just saw? Horrible, isn't it? Have you ever experienced this when trying to remember whole chunks of your life? I have. My name, as far as I know, is Max. No second name. Not that I can remember anyway. I was found wandering the streets of Paris when I was eight years old, although I was unable to speak a word of French, only English, and I had an accent that nobody could place. Some experts said that they thought the only possible explanation for it was that I must have moved around a lot as a youngster. Not exactly helpful when you're trying to find out who you are and where you came from. My parents must have been travellers, they said. Gypsies. Although I preferred to think of them as wanderers. And I was Max, their wandering daughter. When I was found all those years ago, I was thrown into an orphanage in the back of beyond, in middle America, where they would take me without question. Which was lucky, considering that I was not exactly a normal child, on the inside or out.

Of course, they said I was cute. Pretty, even. But nobody would ever want me. After all, who would want a mutant when they had their pick of a hundred healthy, normal, perfect little children? Who would ever choose the quiet little girl in the corner, the one with the dirt on her face and the long, brown,monkey tail peeking out of the bottom of the sack that was her clothing? Apparently nobody, because I stayed in that orphanage until I was sixteen years old. I left on my own, with no family, no home, no roof over my head and no money in my pockets. But I was free, for the first time in as long as I could remember. I was free to do some searching, some wandering, free to find out who I really was.

That's how I met them.

Three days after I had been kicked out of the orphanage, three days after my sixteenth birthday, I found myself wandering around the crowded streets of North City. The orphanage had been a fair distance away from any kind of civilisation, and as a testament to how cold it was, there was about six inches of snow on the ground. God knows how I survived the journey, I'm sure if I had been any kind of normal child I wouldn't have. Maybe that was the idea. Maybe they thought that the best place for me was in a ditch somewhere, where I couldn't bother anyone with my oddities or my quirks. People felt uncomfortable around me with my tail, and of course their comfort was paramount. Too bad for them that the reasons they wanted me dead were also the traits that kept me alive. Unnatural strength, speed and agility, heightened senses, and the ability to go for more than a fortnight without food or water. You can't blame them for hating me, really. I was different, and people are scared of things that are different. They looked at my tail like it was an outward manifestation of the devil inside of me. Idiots, right?

So, anyway, there I was, wandering around in minus temperatures, freezing my tail off, in a strange place, without so much as a nickel to my name, and I hadn't eaten in three days. I had learned from experience to keep my tail hidden, curled around my waist inside of my baggy, unflattering clothes, but people were still decidedly unfriendly and unhelpful. There were too many street names and everything was loud and bright and unavoidable. I saw signs in windows with words I'd never heard of, cafes advertising beverages I'd never tasted, and there seemed to be an ungodly variety of coffee to choose from. My first thoughts were that living in the city might be fun, but I soon realised that that was only for people with money. My first night in the city was not spent sipping a soy latte, but rather sleeping in the doorway of a restaurant called the Caffe Marra. When you're in those kind of temperatures for that length of time, your body adapts. It has to. So after a while the cold didn't bother me. But even in the dead of night, the city is still buzzing with life. Have you ever slept in the streets of a major city? Try it and I guarantee that the first time you sleep in a bed afterwards, it will be the single most pleasant experience of your entire life. I sat for hours, attempting to take my mind off of the unbearable cold by memorising the menu. I didn't know much about money, but I could see that the coffee was hideously overpriced. I don't remember much else about that night, only thinking that this was not how I expected freedom to feel.

The next morning I suffered a rude awakening at the hands of a broomstick-weilding hag, shooing me loudly like I was some sort of common house pest. I wouldn't have minded so much if she had used the soft bristles of the broom to move me on, instead of the hard, wooden handle...but we can't have everything we want. Cursing under my breath, I ran off down an unfamiliar street, only stopping when I felt a sharp tug of hunger. I closed my eyes, smelling the air for any sign of food. I caught a whiff of something fresh and exotic and trudged wearily towards the source. It was an early morning market about ten minutes away and I thanked Kami for such a great theiving opportunity. I was a well practiced pick-pocket, the kids at the orphanage and I used to delight in taking things from the mistresses. It was never malicious, it was all just a bit of fun, like we would take their pocket-watches and move them forward an hour, then sneak them back without them realising, so that they were late for everything. It also meant that lights-out was an hour later, which was always a good thing. But I smiled, gratefully, realising that those harmless childhood games would help me now.

I managed to score an apple and some crusty bread before I turned a corner into an area where, I noticed, all of the tendors were male. This didn't mean a thing to me, but I also noticed that every single one of them was looking at me like I was a piece of meat. Assuming that this was because they thought they had spotted a potential customer, I carried on, casing the stalls, looking for any conveniently placed goods that I could swipe. When I was halfway down the row of stalls, the staring was becoming unbearable. Paranoid, I felt around my waist, double-checking that my tail was still out of sight which,
of course, it was. I frowned, confused, when a male voice from behind me shouted, causing me to spin around quickly in my cautious state,
"Hey guys, want to flip your eyes back in their sockets? Geez! She's far too young for any of you. Look at her, she can't be older than eighteen!"

I regarded the speaker with a mixture of confusion and grattitude as he approached me. He had long, black hair which fell to his lower back with a kind of deliberate scruffiness and he wore strange orange clothing with a blue belt around his waist that didn't seem to be for holding up his pants at all. As he got closer, I noticed a deep, red scar in the shape of an X on his left cheek. This man was obviously a fighter of some sort, his bulging muscles and training attire told me that much...but he had kind eyes and a casual and friendly gait, which relaxed me some.

"Hi, I'm Yamcha. Sorry about them, they're animals. They don't represent my gender well at all." He made a face and I smiled. He held out a hand in greeting and I shook it, gingerly.
"I'm Max."
"Max...you got a second name to go with that?"
"No. Just Max." I replied, not bothering to go into an explanation. He looked a little bewildered, but the smile never left his face.
"Just Max...I like it."
He stepped towards me and I backed away reflexively. He looked hesitant for a moment, before saying,
"Don't worry, I won't hurt you."
"Yeah, like you could!" I snapped, but with no real venom. He laughed, clearly appreciating my spunk. He was more than a head taller than me and his arms were about five times the size of mine. It was clear to anyone with half a braincell that he could very easily have hurt me. Of course, that's because they didn't know about my freakishly unnatural strength, but still, it did seem ridiculous, and I couldn't help but smile.
"You've got guts, kid. Most grown men would never challenge me like that."
"Well, I can't judge. You're pretty much the first grown man I've ever spoken to, so..."
"What?" He laughed, clearly thinking that I was joking. When my face remained stoic, he cocked an eyebrow, questioningly. "What do you...where are you from?"
"Around." I shrugged.
"Well, you're a mystery."
"Um...thanks?"
"So, Max, are you hungry?"
As if on cue, my stomach growled loudly. I smiled, a little embarrassed. He nodded and gestured for me to follow him.
"I know this great little place, about ten minutes that way..."
"It's not called the Caffe Marra, by any chance?"
"Yeah...you know it?"
"Kinda...I sort of...slept there last night." I replied, grinning half-heartedly. He masked the look of surprise with a friendly smile.
"Well, 'just Max'...I think I'm going to HAVE to hear your story now?"
"Sure...buy me some fancy, overpriced coffee and we could have a deal." I replied, winking.
"Ok, you're on." He said, the smile never leaving his face. We walked together to the cafe whose cold, concrete doorway had been my pillow, and whose patron had been my human alarm clock, talking nonsense to each other all the way.